Laser customization by direct writing of aluminum interconnects.

The authors present a recently developed technique for direct writing of high-quality aluminum conductors for the purposes of prototyping and customizing integrated circuits. This laser-driven process is a one-step technique to accomplish the customizing metallization step that avoids the use of conventional lithography and allows for rapid turnaround of small quantities of semicustom ICs. This is demonstrated by wiring a CMOS gate-array using this technique and comparing it to the more common laser technique of ablating preexisting interconnects. The process thus provides a complement to laser ablation and allows for greater flexibility in customization.